Why is this work relevant for Direct?

In the world of insurance, being personal is what matters. And in this new, fast-paced world where digital experiences are impersonal, saturated and easily forgotten, physical experiences triumph. Centraal Beheer wanted to show new consumers why they are the most customer-friendly insurer of the Netherlands.
We created a direct campaign to help people sell their car online. And communicate our insurance at the right time and place. We built an autonomous drive-through installation that generates professional car commercials. Helping 500 people sell their car, while reaching our target audience (more than 3 million people looking to buy) directly.

Background

Centraal Beheer, famous for its ‘Just Call Us’ campaigns, had always done things a little traditionally: make a film and go big on TV. Now it was losing market share in car insurances and had to find new ways to reach new consumers.
To Centraal Beheer, insurance is more than just settling claims. They go out of their way to help people – in whatever troubling situation they might be. That’s why they’re rated the most customer-friendly insurer of the Netherlands. But how do we prove that to a mass audience – who do not know our service – and attract new customers?
We needed to really do something that would a) showcase our mentality, and b) solve a real problem car owners have.

Describe the creative idea

We discovered that people only thought about car insurance right before buying a car. 78% of people in the Netherlands buy a used car online on websites like Marktplaats (the Dutch eBay), Autotrader and Facebook marketplace. We decided to create a new service to advertise our insurance at the right time and place.
We created Car Commercial To Go: an autonomous drive-thru installation that creates professional car commercials for anyone selling their car online.
Car owners could choose a scenery, drive in, wait 40 seconds and let the five projectors and voice actor do some magic. Then, they just drove out with their car commercial – ready to hit the marketplace.We made professional car commercials for private car sellers, and in turn they advertised our brand to an audience looking to buy a car. Every video ended with our campaign message, so each car ad was also an insurance ad.

Describe the strategy

In the Netherlands,78% percent of buyers choose a used car online from a private seller at car marketplaces like Ebay. This is the moment they either buy, or switch to a new insurer. Yet, from our focus group we learned that a car insurance was the last thing on a car buyer’s mind. And with many other things on a buyer’s mind, this meant that a rational, sales oriented message wouldn’t make it into a consumer’s mind.We discovered this was the right opportunity to really make an impact with our customer-friendliness. We decided to help those selling their car and, as a result, reach people at the moment they are looking to buy a car. Addressing used-car buyers directly on marketplaces, car publishers, targeted outdoor media, and radio got us into their mind in the right time. We grew sales by 10% — the benefits of going the extra mile.

Describe the execution

After arriving at our drive-thru installation, sellers chose a scenery, drove in, waited 40 seconds and let the five projectors do their magic, with the voice-over narrating every detail. Then just drove out with a professional car commercial sent to their inbox.
Before the event, We created a film to promote the idea and recruit sellers. We distributed the film through Centraal Beheer’s internal network, their social media, and 12 partner publishers, recruiting people on a dedicated landing page. In a three-day event, we shot all the commercials that people could use directly in their classifieds ads. In addition to the ads that were placed online at marketplaces, the crowdsourced short videos were also used to advertise to a larger audience in display, digital out-of-home, and online marketplaces

List the results

After popular demand, we extended the planned two-day event with another day, helping a total of +500 people sell their car online with a professional commercial. We reached 3.2M people in the Netherlands (18.6% of the Dutch population) through a combination of targeted media and mass media. The event was covered in one of the largest news outlets and shared on 12 popular social media pages, resulting in 1M+ earned video views and 40M impressions. In the first week of the campaign we grew brand preference with 25%. In the second week our top-of-mind awareness was up to 16% from 9%. And, most importantly, we increased sales by 10% (20 percent above target!) in a highly competitive market.